1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a service providing apparatus and a service providing method, and it is applicable to a service for downloading application programs, for example. According to the present invention, system identification data for specifying a service target device and the user of the device are issued to the device concerned, and authentication processing is carried out on the basis of the system identification data to provide services, whereby a cumbersome work at the user side can be effectively avoided and user's desired service and optimum service can be provided through the Internet or the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various kinds of application programs for personal use for use in personal computers have been hitherto provided integrally with the computers while being installed in the computers or provided separately from the computers while recorded in recording media such as CD-ROMs.
On the other hand, services of providing these kinds of application programs through download using the Internet have been recently developed. In this case, at the user side, users access home pages managed by, for example, software firms to download their desired application programs.
With respect to the provision of services through the Internet as described above, various methods have been proposed as disclosed in JP-A-11-6203, etc., for example, and these methods are used for not only provision of application programs, but also sale of goods, etc.
In the case of application programs which are provided integrally with a computer, there may occur a case where they contain some application programs which are not necessarily needed by a user, however, such unnecessary application programs can be excluded in the case of application programs which are provided separately from a computer. Particularly in the case of application programs which are provided by using the Internet, the connection to the Internet is established and necessary application programs can be downloaded at that time, so that the user's convenience, etc. can be more enhanced as compared with the case where application programs are separately provided by using CD-ROM or the like.
With respect to application programs, there is such a case where one person uses one application program for plural devices. As a result, when application programs are provided by using the Internet, it is necessary to specify the user and further specify the user's device. Accordingly, it is required for the user side to manage data for specifying the user and further specifying the device, and the management of the data is remarkably cumbersome. When one person uses plural devices, it is necessary to manage the data for specifying the individual separately from the management of the data for specifying each device in connection with each device. On the other hand, when one person uses one device, it is necessary to manage two kinds of identification data for one device.